Livnat: Their Only Goal was to Murder Jews

Minister of Culture Limor Livnat (Likud) spoke to Arutz Sheva on Wednesday following the announcement that three of her nephew’s murderers had been arrested.

Livnat was aunt to Ben-Yosef Livnat, 24, who was gunned down by Palestinian Authority police officers while visiting the Tomb of the Biblical Joseph (Kever Yosef) in Samaria (Shomron).

She began by expressing admiration for the (Israel Security Agency) Shin Bet, which tracked down the killers.

Livnat noted that some people had insisted on calling the murder a “shooting incident,” and some had even blamed Ben-Yosef in his own death, accusing him of provoking the PA officers by being present at a place and time where they were not expecting Israeli Jewish visitors.

“We said immediately that it was a terrorist attack at the hands of Palestinian police officers, as has now been proven,” she said.

“There was no provocation. The Palestinian police were the ones who fired, and who tried to create the false impression that there had been some sort of incident there, they scattered rocks and coordinated their stories.

“They did this in cooperation with the PA, because it turns out that the director of the [PA] jail they were in made an injury on the leg of one of them so they could argue that there had been a clash. But the gunfire was not prompted by any provocation or conflict,” she said.

“They wanted to murder Jews. That’s all,” Livnat declared.

She expressed the hope that the three suspects would be indicted next week, and that the additional two suspects who remain at large would be arrested quickly.